THE EFFECT OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF CORE MATERIAL ON THE FLEXURAL BEHAVIOR OF SANDWICH COMPOSITES FOR WIND TURBINE BLADES

In this study, three differently-configured sandwich structures were manufactured with three different core materials: Balsa wood, Tycor and Polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Glass-Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) skins were used to understand the effects of different types of core materials on the flexural behavior of sandwich composites under four point bending (4PB) condition, using digital image correlation (DIC). DIC is one of the most outstanding techniques to understand the mechanical behavior of the structure during the test, thus defining any problematic regions in the structures. The failure mechanisms of the structures were observed by using strain maps of the structures. The results show that the sandwich structure with Balsa wood as a core material has the highest stiffness; however, catastrophic failure appeared in the early stages of the test. The sandwich structure with PET and Tycor exhibited very similar behaviour under load.